Staying ahead of the technology curve means strengthening your competitive advantage. That is why we give you data-driven innovation insights into the agriculture sector. This time, you get to discover 5 hand-picked drone startups impacting agriculture.
Out of 399, the Global Startup Heat Map highlights 5 Top Drone Startups impacting Agriculture
The insights of this data-driven analysis are derived from the Big Data & Artificial Intelligence-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, covering 2 093 000+ startups & scaleups globally. The platform gives you an exhaustive overview of emerging technologies & relevant startups within a specific field in just a few clicks.
The Global Startup Heat Map below reveals the distribution of the 399 exemplary startups & scaleups we analyzed for this research. Further, it highlights 5 AgriTech startups that we hand-picked based on criteria such as founding year, location, funding raised, and more. You get to explore the solutions of these 5 startups & scaleups in this report. For insights on the other 399 drone startups impacting agriculture, get in touch.
Drone Ag facilitates Crop Spraying Drones
The spraying of crops is an extensive process in agricultural operations that requires heavy equipment. Subsequently, current methods of crop spraying do not support precision spraying and spray more material than required. Further, requiring tractors and other heavy equipment even to spray small patches makes it highly inefficient. This is why startups are creating automated drones that are able to handle the tasks of spraying crops with higher precision.
UK-based startup Drone Ag creates software for a range of automated drones. The company develops Skippy Scout, software to control drones for scouting crops. Drone Ag works with DJI Agras systems, an automated crop spraying drone that features a real-time kinematic (RTK) base for centimeter-level accuracy in navigation. Through its solution, Drone Ag supports farming operations such as bracken control, spraying off weed patches, spreading seed by optimizing operations, and minimizing costs. Additionally, their solutions enable the automated scouting of crops and mapping of fields.
Kurai provides Crop Monitoring Drones
Crop monitoring is important for a variety of reasons including yield estimation, disease mitigation, and farm management. This is why farmers use aerial imaging solutions to understand and receive insights into their crops. The downsides to these methods are the high costs associated with satellite imaging and the greenhouse gas emissions emitted from planes used for monitoring. To solve these problems, startups are developing advanced positioning and Artificial Intelligence-powered drones to monitor crops.
South African startup Kurai creates data-driven crop monitoring and treatment solutions using drones. Its multi-spectral drones collect and analyze detailed images of fields to provide crop-specific insights that are used to track crop health, reduce input costs, and identify problems. The solution also incorporates AI and deep learning with prescription maps synced with farm equipment for soil health mapping, crop health mapping, and more. The drones enable farm owners and operators to make data-driven decisions with economically viable precision agriculture tools.
AgroFly manufactures High-Precision Sprayers for Drones
Crop spraying is a process that either involves the use of heavy equipment or intensive manual labor. Farmers are deploying drone-based crop spraying solutions to reduce the need for heavy equipment or manual labor. However, due to the large area of crops to be sprayed, drones either have to make multiple trips or are equipped with larger tanks that limit their operational area. To overcome this challenge, startups are focusing on developing nozzles and spraying attachments that make spraying more efficient and accurate.
Swiss startup AgroFly develops, builds, and distributes agricultural unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The startup’s drones use a high-precision agricultural sprayer that removes the need for heavy-load frame drones or large tanks with spraying material. Further, the high precision approach means the drone sprays its target, without drifts.
TRITHI Robotics offers Precision Agriculture Drones
Crop diseases, such as coffee berry disease, are highly severe because the fungus that invades the berry affects bean development and quality. Moreover, the disease spreads rapidly and makes large portions of entire coffee plantations unusable. The large sizes of plantations make efforts to protect them from diseases a labor-intensive task as heavy equipment cannot be utilized. This is where startups are assisting plantation operators by creating drones that support the protection and restoration of plantations.
Indian startup TRITHI Robotics develops precision agriculture drones specifically for the protection and restoration of plantations from diseases. Its solution uses drones equipped with multispectral cameras, spray tanks, and post-processing computer software to scan and spray over the entire area of the plantation. The startup’s drones reduce the loss of jobs due to the damage from crop diseases and reduce the time, effort, and cost required to protect or restore plantations.
Drone Japan facilitates Crop Analytics
Farmers are utilizing sensors, planes, and satellites to monitor their crops and gather data to manage their farms. However, these technologies have a drawback as they only provide data from a single perspective (ground or aerial), making it difficult to create models for complete farm management. To lower the high costs associated with the tools and technologies to gather data from multiple levels, startups are utilizing drones to analyze farms.
Japanese startup Drone Japan specializes in farm monitoring solutions through remote sensing using drones. The startup analyzes data gathered by drones and other sensors to create complete reports that determine optimal harvest time, support for yield prediction, etc. The startup’s farm analytics solution provides benefits to agricultural operators, production corporations, agricultural cooperatives, local governments, and more.
Discover more AgriTech Startups
AgriTech startups such as the examples highlighted in this report focus on aerial imaging, geospatial analysis, and weather analytics. While all of these technologies play a major role in advancing the agricultural industry, they only represent the tip of the iceberg. To explore more agricultural technologies, simply get in touch to let us look into your areas of interest. For a more general overview, you can download our free AgriTech Innovation Report to save your time and improve strategic decision-making.